Syzygies

Re: Best vacuum packer? (FoodSaver alternatives?) This is a good point; everyone should decide for themselves whether they want to commit the space to a chamber vacuum machine, and whether they can live with a different set of restrictions (no hot liquids, for example). I don't want to commit the space. I am charmed by a compact, easily carried and easily stored unit that gets the job done. (A key part of this for me are the VacStrip bags, superior to FoodSaver bags. They're the equal of heat-safe chamber bags, with an additional inner layer to provide vacuum channels.) Let's make this a fair comparison. Many people are happy with clamp vacuum machines that are 1/3 the price of the Cyclone 30. Many people are also happy with the least expensive chamber vacuum machines on the market. Were I buying a chamber machine now, it would probably be the MiniPack MVS 20 for around $1,600. Its Busch oil pump is spoken of with high regard by those who distinguish makes and types of pumps. That's around 5x the price of the Cyclone 30. The cheapest chamber machines are around 5x the price of FoodSaver level clamp machines. Everyone should decide for themselves, on space, weight, price, restrictions, and what constitutes acceptable quality. Of course the price intervals will overlap. Let's also not forget that we're here because the Komodo Kamado for us defines quality in a ceramic cooker. There are less expensive alternatives, and we've concluded that the differences are well worth the price.

MiniPack Cyclone blowout sale So I wrote MiniPack to ask about the Cyclone 30. They're no longer actively promoting non-chamber machines, finding it too difficult to educate users on liquids. They want to concentrate on their core business of chamber vacuum machines. I just ordered another Cyclone 30 for my other home, at their blowout sale price, just over $300 with shipping and CA tax. [email protected][/email:11cmmtpc] Every now and then I do run a damp paper towel around the gasket, if an oddly wrinkled bag is having trouble getting a vacuum started. The direction do say to press both sides as one starts. This is nevertheless by far my favorite such machine; hopefully my second order speaks for itself.

Re: Best vacuum packer? (FoodSaver alternatives?) PayPal heard nothing from the guy (I did, an apology for being busy) and refunded my money. Whew! However, the boilerplate in the refund included the message: Huh. Apparently, PayPal gave me money back that was in the seller's account. We've also experienced sellers folding without funds; Amex invariably sides with the customer, while other credit cards side with "the man". I'm not sure I trust PayPal for any amount I'm not willing to lose. A conservative rule: It's worth paying more, if they accept Amex. Dennis would be the one exception: We had no concerns using PayPal to buy our Komodo Kamado. This is squarely Dennis's reputation, not PayPal's. I'd hand Dennis cash, and sleep like a baby that night. Bottom line: VakShak doesn't have their act together.

Re: Pimento Wood Chunks It grows like a weed in warm enough climates. I tried growing a tree in Concord, CA (with jerk chicken on my mind) and the frost killed it. I was so hoping you'd found some! A workaround is to toss some allspice (available cheap in bulk at e.g. Indian grocers like Vik's in Berkeley) onto the fire.

I could have used that kind of charm in my single years

Re: pork butt and ribs While I agree with mguerra, I've had my KK get away from me a few times, turning any residue on the grills to white ash exactly like a self-cleaning oven. No other obvious harm. This is hard use; I did basically destroy a K7 (now limping along in my neighbor's yard) with this kind of hard living. While Dennis may advise caution, I can say that the KK is built better than any competing brand, and can take this hard use better than any competing brand. Now a new KK? Break it in gradually. Even this "or else" is not as urgent as it was for my previous cooker, the KK can probably take it. I rent new cars from rental agencies now and then; do you think anyone drives the first 1,000 miles as they would their own new car? Yet the cars take it.

Re: Everyday Misc Cooking Photos w/ details All else equal, first experiences get elevated in one's memories. I was utterly stunned the first time I had pesto, yet I'm sure I've made better. The best brisket I've ever had in my life was in Elgin, TX. I've come close several times, but they had it all. Great beef, constant practice, and probably a protocol none of us have hit upon. I was at a math conference in College Station, I'd found the best local dive BBQ joint and was taking various colleagues there. Picking up some wine the last afternoon, I asked the guy bagging my wine if we'd found the right place. I ... don't ... eat ... bar .. be ... cue One could have a reading of Molly Bloom's Soliloquy between two of his syllables. The New Yorker in me was crawling out of my skin. The last vegetarian outside the Austin city limits? "Toto, we're not in Houston any more!" 'round ... here! Well then? Where does this guy go? Elgin. The 15 lbs of brisket carry-on attracted some attention, but not till we'd taken off. Dave

Re: Please click on the Social Media icons on the front pag Also, anyone participating in other food forums, be sure to link to komodokamado.com whenever your KK comes up naturally in a discussion. One can do this without coming off as a shill, if one generally provides helpful links for whatever is being discussed.

Re: Is the Benzomatic JT850 the best? Lately I've been using an electric starter. Takes a bit longer, but less direct attention...

Re: Pressure Cookers Here's a very interesting site for pressure cooking. Very diverse set of applications: Hip Pressure Cooking

Re: Steam for Bread This has been my experience, too. I'm not saying that bread baked without steam is deficient. Steam can have a dramatic effect on bread baking, and may or may not be worth the trouble. I've seen this effect, and I want to deliver the steam more easily.

Re: Steam for Bread Here's a great link on the physics: Counting Calories The key numbers: It takes 80 calories to thaw a gram of ice, 100 calories to bring that gram to the boiling point, and a whopping 540 calories to then turn that gram of water to steam. Cast iron holds about 13% as much heat as water. So a 15 lb cast iron skillet at 500 F will boil off around 250 ml of water. It makes scant difference whether one uses hot tap water, or boiling water, and the convenience of using ice cubes isn't that inefficient. I'm now thinking, stack two skillets and use ice. I might drill a few holes in the top skillet, as I did with my cast iron Dutch oven to make a smoke pot.

Re: Steam for Bread Bayou Classic 16 Inch Skillet This one is even heavier. Some people throw ice cubes onto a hot tray, for bread. This takes more energy to turn the water to steam, but it prolongs the effect. I was just rereading the various Bouchon Bakery discussions, where they use chains and rocks for extra thermal mass (with no discussion of the dangers of galvanized metals at high heat; do stainless steel chains even exist?). What if I boiled water in a steel container (like one finds at commercial cookware stores, such as for steam tables) with a tiny leak. I'd have to boil inside a second container, but when the time comes, move the leaky container onto the skillet, and have it dispense boiling water over five minutes. The skillet would stay hot enough to vaporize the water as it leaked out.

Re: Pressure Cookers

Re: RO-MAN Pork Puller Ro-Man Pork Puller Or, if you didn't want to wait till serving time, you could really make the rotisserie from hell with two of these things...

Re: Pressure Cookers How would this fit into a cooking routine, opening up new options? Last week I made a Provencal daube for guests. (KK content: I baked the bread over fire.) The real reason to cook daube is to be able to make a ravioli the next night with meat and greens, which was the best ravioli I've ever eaten. In any case I used beef short ribs for the daube. A great stew meat, though it can fall apart. After trimming, the pile of bones and scraps is easily half the total weight. An "everything but the squeal" approach to cooking demands that one makes a quick stock with the scraps, to layer into the dish. What? Quick beef stock? Enter pressure cooker, stage left. Unfortunately I didn't have one, but this would have been a perfect application.

Re: Pressure Cookers Cooks Illustrated recommends Fissler as best-of-category: Stovetop Pressure Cookers (Cooks Illustrated; subscription required) Fissler Vitaquick Pressure Cooker, 8.5qt (Amazon) "The only cooker to reach 250 degrees at high pressure, it cooked food to perfection in the time range suggested by the recipes." Mine just arrived; they go in and out of stock, and word is that buzz is only increasing for the category in general, and Fissler in particular. There's a thread over at eGullet; this is where Nathan Myhrvold frequently posted on sous vide before writing Modernist Cuisine: Pressure Cookers: 2011 and beyond (eGullet) I have Modernist Cuisine at Home. It advocates sous vide, pressure cookers, and microwave ovens as standard tools. The series has a bit of an identity crisis, for it wants to proclaim it's the last cookbook, but if it were, it would entirely teach problem solving for adapting modern methods to any classical cuisine of our choosing, such as Moroccan tagines. Instead it is a series of recipes, but not those that I'd want to finish out my life cooking. However, more than anything, I have trouble reading it without cracking up, because the format reminds me so strongly of my Home Depot books on plumbing and home repair. In contrast, I absolutely love Heston Blumenthal's "at home" book: Heston Blumenthal at Home (Amazon) Stunning production values, font and layout choices creating a brilliant calm. The book doesn't claim to be anything but what it is. Some say, perhaps his home, but not so far off from your home or mine. In any case, there are eight pages of stock recipes, one per page, for white chicken stock, brown chicken stock, beef stock, lamb stock, fish stock, crab stock, vegetable stock, mushroom stock. Each one involves a pressure cooker; at 250 F the Malliard reaction can take place underwater. I literally bought the pressure cooker to make these eight stocks; if I use it for anything else that will be a bonus. Stock is very important to us. As a side note, I put away stock in chamber vacuum pouches, which I seal with a $40 impulse sealer. This would be quicker even if I owned a chamber vacuum machine. The pouches are heat safe, and so inexpensive that I put up smaller quantities in one cup multiples. I thaw by simmering the pouch in boiling water, then slit a corner to use the stock, perhaps in stages.

Re: Steam for Bread Hey, you're the one wearing latex gloves for a living!

Re: Steam for Bread The tiny probe hole, normally plugged with a silicone plug. I'm going to work on a prototype, this is a great idea.

Re: Steam for Bread I like that idea! That would allow a continual feed during the early bake. Just quite literally what I said, I've tried the lesser solutions people use, like spritzing with a spray bottle, and it has much less effect.

Lodge Logic 15-Inch Pre-Seasoned Skillet So recent bread cookbooks make it clear: Commercial bread ovens inject steam to a degree impossible at home. (A spritz from a spray bottle is about as effective as those copper films on 1950s Revere Ware.) Like all things, one can say one is having success, till one sees the results of enough steam. Then, it's "Whoah! Now I know what people are talking about." These books recommend cooking in cast iron pots, to contain the steam from the bread itself. This works, but only for shapes that fit in the pot: Tartine Bread Bouchon Bakery Flour Water Yeast Salt My Bread I found the above 15" cast iron skillet for $35 on Amazon. After hacksawing off most of the handle, it fits nicely in a KK, and is perhaps the largest, heaviest pan which will. After a 500 F preheat, it can boil off three cups of boiling water in short order. I've seen oven spring like I've never experienced before, with this much steam. This is simple physics; the thermal mass of the pan stores lots of energy, and boiling water takes less energy to turn to steam. I'm still dialing in the protocol: Upper or main deck for the bread stone? My loaves are burning from radiant dome heat, if I'm not careful. Two or three cups boiling water? The spray tends to knock down the fire temperature, and one does want a 50 F drop, but not more. At what temperature do I start? That sort of thing. Bouchon Bakery advises using stainless steel chains to build enough thermal mass to produce sufficient steam. This solution seems easier, and nicely adapted to the KK.

Re: Best vacuum packer? (FoodSaver alternatives?) My research lead me to the belief that the Minipack Cyclone 30 could be the best compact external clamp vacuum sealer. I now own one in New York, buying the last one from one vendor at $295. Rumor has it this machine has been discontinued; anyone imagining that they can drop ship one may be wrong about this. I'm in a PayPal dispute over a second unit for California which never arrived from The Vak Shack, at $350. If the Minipack Cyclone 30 is available anywhere, one will have to pay $400 or so. Use a credit card that you're sure will side with you; by the time a PayPal dispute resolves, these may be long gone from the market. You will have missed your chance. The competitors at this price point (Weston and private label versions of same) all look like they were built in someone's garage, are bulkier, and have various unhappy reviews. There is nothing astonishing about the Minipack, it just works as one might have expected a $50 Target unit to work, except one needs to pay $400 these days for such quality. The gaskets do not need replacing. The pump stays on while sealing (what moron at FoodSaver didn't think this was necessary?). The unit is compact, all metal, digital display with multiple adjustable saved settings. The cheap note is the totally unnecessary plastic drip tray (just clean the space in which it sits) which can interfere with a full vacuum. To be fair, by its own measurements the Minipack Cyclone 30 reaches a 6% or 7% vacuum, which is enough to shrink pouches pretty hard around food. I'd guess this is twice the FoodSaver vacuum, and I really wonder what people are thinking who use FoodSavers to apply a vacuum to containers such as Ball jars. Can enough pressure to hold the lid on tight really make any difference to the keeping properties of food within? I made some experiments involving sealed pouches with pinholes inside a Ball jar, and as best I could tell the FoodSaver vacuum was negligible. Enough to hold the lid on, but no significant effect on the contents. A chamber vacuum machine easily reaches a 98% vacuum, which facilitates many Modernist techniques I could perhaps live without. Some of us are worried not only about the money, but the counter space. $400 for a unit that really gets the job done and is small and portable is a good thing. Bags are also a consideration. One does break even with enough volume through a chamber machine, because the bags cost so much less. Yet few of us are really at this volume. The chamber pouches are also wonderful; if one gets used to them (say, with liquids and a $40 impulse sealer) one learns to detest the clumsy, overpriced FoodSaver bags. One easily buys chamber pouches rated for 48 hours of sous vide simmering; FoodSaver makes no such statement. I found a less expensive source of "channel" bags that are rated for sous vide and "boil in pouch" applications: VacMaster VacStrip bags They're an interesting design: Extra material is inserted to provide the vacuum channels, so the 3 mil pouch itself is not compromised by vacuum channels. My only bag failures have involved bones; the Cyclone pulls the plastic pretty hard around a bone, making a puncture likely. Notice one can order bone guards, which are also used with chamber machines. Dear reader, you may hear from others who bought 5,000 chamber bags on price before considering the question of heat safety, and now want to assert that there is no safety issue. Health safety is a moving target; I remember when we gradually became aware that smoking could kill. Just flagging a possible issue for you to consider; we're erring on the side of caution. Again, if you're happy with your FoodSaver, lucky you. Like $50 headphones or a $14,000 sticker car, why rock the boat if nothing is obviously wrong? There's also ziplock bags, one can get pretty close to FoodSaver quality storage with a bit of manual dexterity.

Re: Hamburger mix blend We've tried various cuts. Brisket good. Short ribs are the most underrated cut for any application: They make hands down the best stews, but are also a fantastic addition to hamburger mixes. Still, chuck rules. Ask for the good end, whatever that means (I forget which end that is, but my butcher knows).

Re: waking up this thread...stainless cleaning

Re: Cleaning Stainless Steel Nitric acid, wow. I'm still stuck in the "ammonia" beginner class. Does anyone understand the chemistry of ammonia with respect to crud on a SS grates? I'm told that simply placing a bowl of concentrated ammonia in a closed space (sealed trash bag) with SS grates will help clean them. I haven't tried this; somehow the gas softens deposits? An operational "this works" understanding would be great, but I'm also curious what actually happens, like the ammonia prions tickle the left-handed quark deposits, that sort of explanation.